Elementary Science Fair Planning Guide - Cobb County School ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$Rising CHS 9th Graders Summer Math Packet$

Step 3: Testing your Hypothesis by doingan experimentNow we’ve come to the good part. The part that all scientists can’t wait to get their grubbylittle hands on… you guessed it… The EXPERIMENT!Designing an experiment is really cool because you get to use your imagination to come upwith a test for your problem, and most of all, you get to prove (or disprove) your Hypothesis.Now <strong>Science</strong> <strong>Fair</strong> Rules state that you cannot perform your experiment live, so you’ll haveto take plenty of pictures as you go through these seven very simple steps.First: Gather up your materials: What will you need to perform your experiment? The safest way todo this is get that adult you recruited to help you get the stuff you need. Oh, did we mention to take picturesor draw pictures of your materials. This will come in handy when you are making your board display.Second: Write a PROCEDURE. A procedure is a list of steps that you did to perform anexperiment. Why do you need to write it down? Well it’s like giving someone a recipe to your favoritedish. If they want to try it, they can follow your steps to test if its true. Scientists do this so that peoplewill believe that they did the experiment and also to let other people test what they found out. Did wemention to take pictures of yourself doing the steps?Third: Identify your variables. The variables are any factors that can change in an experiment.Remember that when you are testing your experiment you should only test one variable at a time inorder to get accurate results. In other words, if you want to test the affect that water has on plant growth,then all the plants you test should be in the same conditions, these are called controlled variables: sametype of dirt, same type of plant, same type of location, same amount of sunlight, etc. The only variableyou would change from plant to plant would be the amount of water it received. This is called the independentor manipulated variable. The independent variable is the factor you are testing. The resultsof the test that you do are called the dependent or responding variables. The responding variable iswhat happens as a result of your test. Knowing what your variables are is very important because if youdon’t know them you won’t be able to collect your data or read your results.Fourth: TEST, TEST, TEST. Remember that the judges expect your results to be consistent in orderto be a good experiment, in other words, when you cook from a recipe you expect the outcomes to be thesame if you followed the directions (or procedure) step by step. So that means you need to do the experimentmore than once in order to test it properly. We recommend five times or more. More is better!Don’t forget to take pictures of the science project being done and the results.Fifth: Collect your DATA. This means write down or record the results of the experiment every timeyou test it. Be sure You also need to organize it in a way that it is easy to read the results. Most scientistsuse tables, graphs and other organizers to show their results. Organizing makes the results easy to read,and much easier to recognize patterns that might be occurring in your results. (Besides, it impresses thejudges when you use them.) But don’t make a graph or table because we asked you to, use it to benefityour project and to help you make sense of the results. There is nothing worse than having graphs andtables that have nothing to do with answering the question of a science project.Page 8
Time out: How Do You Collect Data?!!?• Keep a science journal: A science journal is a type of science diary that you can keep especially ifyour experiment is taking place over a long period of time. We suggest you do that if your experimentis over a period of a week or more. In your journal you can record observations, collect research,draw and diagram pictures and jot down any additional questions you might have for later.• Have the right tools to do the job: make sure you have the stuff you need to take accuratemeasurements like rulers, meter tapes, thermometers, graduated cylinders or measuring cups thatmeasure volume. The recommended standard of measurement in science is metric so if you can keepyour measurements in meters, liters, Celsius, grams, etc, you are doing great!• Tables, charts and diagrams are generally the way a goodscientist like you would keep track of your experiment trials.Plant Amount ofwater per daySize it grewin two weeksRemember you are testing at least 5 times or more. A table isorganized in columns and rows and ALWAYS has labels or(controlledvariable)(independentvariable)(respondingvariable)headings telling what the columns or rows mean. You willprobably need a row for every time you did the experimentPlant A none .5 cmand a column telling what the independent variable was (what Plant B 5 ml 2 cmyou tested) and the responding variable (the result that happenedbecause of the independent variable)Plant C 10 ml 5 cm• Be accurate and neat! When you are writing your tablesPlant D 20 ml 7 cmand charts please make sure that you record your data in thecorrect column or row, that you write neatly, and most of all that you record your data as soon as youcollect it SO YOU DON’T FORGET WHAT HAPPENED!!!! Sometimes an experiment might be hardto explain with just a table, so if you have to draw and label a diagram (or picture) to explain whathappened, it is recommended that you do.• Use the right graph for your experiment. There is nothing worse than a bad graph. There are alltypes of graph designs, but these seem to be easy to use for science fair experiments.• Pie graphs are good to use if you are showing percentages of groups. Remember that youcan’t have more than 100% and all the pieces need to add up to 100%. This type ofgraph is great if you are doing surveys• Bar graphs are good to use if you are comparingamounts of things because the bars show thoseamounts in an easy to read way. This way the judgeswill be able to tell your results at a glance. Usually the 8bars go up and down. The x axis (or horizontal axis) is 6where you label what is being measured, (like plant A,42B, C and D) and the y axis (or vertical axis) is labeled0to show the unit being measured (in this case it wouldbe centimeters that the plant grew)Grow th in CMgr owth cmP l ant A P l ant B P l ant C P l ant D• Line graphs are good to use if you are showing how changes occurred in your experimentsover time. In this particular case you would be using the x axis to show the timeincrements (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months) and then you would use the Yaxis to show what you were measuring at that point in time.….And Now back to the Experiment StepsSixth: Write a Conclusion: tell us what happened. Was your hypothesis right or wrong or neither?Were you successful, did it turn out okay? Would you change anything about the experiment or are youcurious about something else now that you’ve completed your experiment. And most of all, TELLWHAT YOU LEARNED FROM DOING THIS.Seventh: Understand its Application. Write about how this experiment can be used in a reallife situation. Why was it important to know about it?Page 9
Page 1: Okay, now get to work on your proje
Page 4 and 5: Choosing a category that interests
Page 6 and 7: Step 2 : Doing the Research and for
Page 10 and 11: Materials: (take pictures!)Now it
Page 12: 100cmStep 4: The Presentation or Wh

Elementary Science Fair Planning Guide - Cobb County School ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?